


Gone Ahead

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, Firefly
Genre: Crossover, Crossovering Exchange, Dragons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 18:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12348264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: Gone away, gone ahead. A different girl and her crew travel through time.





	Gone Ahead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoseFrederick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseFrederick/gifts).



> Saw your prompt and couldn't resist! hope you enjoy the treat! :D

"Okay, I'm fairly sure that my mind is playing tricks on me, otherwise I'd have to admit that I'm seeing something that I don't think any human should be seeing without far more alcohol running through their veins," Mal declared. If it weren't for the sharp detail of the lush trees, sticky hot air, and muted buzz of insects all around them, he'd have already given up and declared it a dream.

That his dreams weren't usually this realistic was about the only thing keeping Mal from giving up and becoming a gibbering idiot at this point. But when you stepped off a shuttle and came face to face with a creature out of myth, which then promptly began to cuddle into your own magical mystery girl, gibbering wasn't entirely uncalled for. "What is going on here?"

"They were lonely," River declared, running her hands over a long golden muzzle. "They wanted me to visit them again. They miss her. I couldn't let them down."

"That tickles!" Wash suddenly burst out.

Mal turned to see his pilot with two miniature dragons on his arms, the bronze one rubbing against his chin like the old tom cat they used to have on the farm would do. Wash appeared delighted, even as the other pawed at his hair.

At least, Mal thought they were dragons - them and the big one that River was mooning over - but he still wasn't ruling out an excessive amount of spirits as the real truth. Though he had to admit that even a shot of Jayne's worse rotgut wouldn't produce such a strange vision, it was still just a little too much for him to process.

"They were lonely?" Zoe repeated, skeptically. Her hand had never left her holster, though Mal wasn't sure what good a gun would do against a _dragon._

"Forgotten," River said, continuing to gaze at the dragon lovingly. "My daughters forgot about them; moved on once the danger was past. Can't hear their voices anymore. Another experiment forgotten."

"Can't hear - you saying these dragons are speaking to you?" Zoe asked.

"Daughters?" Mal asked what he thought was the far more relevant question. The girl spoke to cows and spaceships and the Preacher's lord knew what else. He didn't know why she wouldn't be able to speak to dragons, too. If they actually were dragons and not the previously mentioned drunken hallucination which he was personally still leaning towards.

"Lessa's gone," River continued. "Gone silent. And all the others. The ones with the open minds aren't open any more. And that's why she mourns." Her enraptured expression never changed as her hands ran all over the long gleaming snout. Great eyes almost as tall as River herself whirled a purple-blue color as the thing draped itself all around the girl.

"No, but really, let's go back to that daughters part," Mal said. "Cause I think I woulda noticed if you had popped out a coupla kids on my ship."

"My ship," River whispered contrarily.

"Whichever." He wasn't up for having _that_ argument again.

"We spread out across the worlds. Found new ones. But the brain doesn't change. It passes down." River continued to whisper. She seemed to be whispering only to the dragon, but Mal thought he could find a lick or two of logic amongst the mumbling. Leastaways, that's how it usually worked with her.

"We had daughters, and they had daughters and daughters and daughters, and then they left. Traveled long and hard to get here. And they spoke again. But now they're all gone. No one left but the shriveled thread and the hatching sands and the memories."

"Well that was both slightly more and slightly less coherent than usual," Zoe decided.

"Well done!" Mal congratulated River, earning an eye-roll, though the girl refused to look away from the dragon.

"Stop it!" Wash giggled. Mal was fairly certain his pilot was still talking to the miniature dragons in his arms and decided to ignore that, but Zoe shot her husband a look.

"Now I'm back. Back and open and hearing all at once. Speaking all at once. Inside them and inside me and seeing forever," River declared. "Like we should be. Like we were before."

"And we're back to nonsense," Zoe concluded.

"Babe, we've got to keep this thing!" Wash declared. "It loves me!"

"Well you're a very loveable guy," Mal replied, unthinkingly. "The bigger question I think is how we get our shuttle back to Serenity. Either with or without one of these things. And no, River, yours is way to big to come with."

"Always be with me," River replied, again seeming to be talking more to the dragon than to him.

"Right, just so long as you mean that in some kind of metaphoristical way, and not in the sense that you want to try to squeeze it into my shuttle."

"The child shall return one day," River promised the dragon. Then, finally seeming to finish with her endless hug, she abruptly let go of it. "Time to go back," she said, looking directly at Mal.

"Well I think that's about the first logical thing you've said here today," Mal agreed. "Now please tell me that you mean _all the way_ back - back to Serenity?"

"We came this far forward; we can go all the way back again," she shrugged. "The flare is almost upon us."

"Forward? Back again?"

Zoe raised her eyebrow at him. _Time travel?_ she mouthed. Neither of them believed in time travel as such, and certainly the world around them looked far more primitive than they'd assume the future would be. Though mayhap this planet got used up just like the Earth that was.

Mal shrugged. It wouldn't be the craziest idea anyone had suggested. And after River came into their lives he was having a far harder time discounting things like mind readers, so why not add time travel and dragons to the mix?

"I shall have to name you!" Wash declared of his new pets.

River turned quickly to him and frowned. "You suck at naming things," she said matter-of-factly.

Mal couldn't help but burst out laughing at Wash's crushed expression.

Zoe was also full of mirth, but hid it better. Careful of the two creatures in his arms, she patted his cheek. "Sorry baby, but you kind of do."


End file.
